International travel and health

Menu

Rubella

Vaccine

The internationally licensed rubella vaccines, based on the live
attenuated RA 27/3 strain of the rubella virus and propagated in
human diploid cells, have proved safe and efficacious, achieving 95–
100% protection, possibly lifelong, after just one dose. Following
well-designed and well-implemented programmes using such
vaccines, rubella and CRS have almost disappeared from many
countries. Other attenuated vaccine strains are available in China and
Japan.

Rubella vaccine is commercially available in a monovalent form, in a
bivalent combination with measles vaccine, as the trivalent
measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine and in a few countries, also
in a tetrarivalent measles/mumps/rubella/varicella (MMRV)
combination. Rubella-containing vaccines are usually administrated at
12–15 months of age but may be offered to children as young as 9
months.

In principle, rubella vaccination of pregnant women should be
avoided, and pregnancy should be avoided within 1 month of
receiving the vaccine due to the theoretical, but never demonstrated,
risk of vaccine-induced CRS.